"I felt like I was in a movie or a TV show, where you see things that happen and it doesn't feel like it's real," said Kirpach, an art history teacher in Frisco schools. "We've been diving in this area close to shore for years, and it was just an amazing feeling."

It's only the third time a case like this has ever been reported, the last being in 2009. "These were healthy starfish," said Tony Reisinger, Cameron County Extension Agent for Coastal & Marine Resources with Texas Sea Grant at Texas A&M University.

"It's like swimming with a submarine with teeth," Kelly said. "I mean, it's huge, it's unbelievable down there; it dwarfs everything I've ever seen underwater."
According to scientists at Mote, there is at least one other Great White in and around the Gulf and her name is Betsy.

Scientists are now studying the photos of a rare and gruesome goblin shark accidentally caught in the Gulf of Mexico after they spotted another unusual deep-sea creature lying with the captured beast on the deck of the boat.

After a two-hour battle, the anglers finally got the hammerhead to shore where they noticed its injury.
Friends looked on in amazement as Campus started pulling shark pups out intact and rushing them to the water so they could swim away.

The Bald Cypress forest, protected in an oxygen-free environment for more than 50,000 years, was likely uncovered by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, said Ben Raines, executive director of the nonprofit Weeks Bay Foundation and one of the first divers to explore the site.

The wreck, its identity and origin still unknown, remains in about 4,300 feet of water some 150 to 170 miles off Galveston. "What we have just completed is the deepest documentation, recovery and excavation of a shipwreck in U.S. waters," said James Delgado, one of eight marine archaeologists aboard the Nautilus.

Covadonga Arias, a professor of microbial genomics at Auburn University in Alabama, found that Vibrio vulnificus was 10 times higher in tar balls than in sand and up to 10 times higher than in seawater.

The discovery of three historic shipwrecks, most likely from the same event, is so unusual in the northern Gulf of Mexico that just about any information gained from their analysis will chart new ground, said a researcher on the project.

"I looked around baffled," she said by phone Thursday from Miramar Beach. "Is this really happening? It felt like something straight out of a movie."
Four days after the mysterious find, despite some promising leads, she's still trying to track down the owner. less

"I looked around baffled," she said by phone Thursday from Miramar Beach. "Is this really happening? It felt like something straight out of a movie." ... more

Image 53 of 53

Record-breaking amberjack caught in Gulf in fisherman's 'rush of a lifetime'

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A record-breaking amberjack, weighing more than an average-sized supermodel, has been caught in the Gulf off the coast of Biloxi.

Fishermen fought with the massive 126 pound catch for 30 minutes -- much longer than usual for that type of fish -- before hauling it aboard charter boat the Lovin' Life.

"He knew right when he hooked it he had a big one, he could feel it," Captain Chris Denton said of the lucky fisherman. "I thought it was a big grouper, its mouth was so big," Denton said.

The fish was caught March 22 by Don Wheeler from Laurel, Miss., in an area of the Gulf known as Horseshoes Rigs, where there is a salt dome under water between the oil rigs, a popular spot for sport fishermen.

The group of 11 on the boat had switched their bait, loading up the hook with an 8lb Spanish mackeral they'd just caught on the hook, when the action started.

"It wasn't down (near the bottom) very long and the rod bent over,'' Wheeler told gulflive.com. ''Then it was on and the rush of a lifetime began. At first, I thought I had a big shark. The fish went down like it was headed for Cuba."

Wheeler, a medical salesman and high school friend of the boat's owner, said he was hanging on for dear life for the half-hour struggle.

"Basically, I was holding on to the rod because the fish was putting a tremendous strain on my arms, back and legs. Amberjacks tend to pull like a donkey and I did my best to hold on. But my adrenaline was too high to quit."

Eventually, the greater amberjack came to the surface and the crew pulled it aboard with two fishing gaffs, then it was back to shore for the weigh-in.

"We knew the record was 124 pounds, 4 ounces," said Captain Chris Denton. "But we didn't know how big ours was 'til we weighed it."

When the certified scale back at Biloxi Marina showed 125.8 pounds Wheeler knew he had a record breaker.

"Everybody just started going crazy!" said Denton. "He'll have his name in the record books, and it was caught with our bait."

"It's one of those incidents that almost looks fake when you see it," said Al Jones of Gulflive.com who rushed down to cover the catch, "It was almost as tall as Don who caught it!" said Jones.

Wheeler said he cant put into words how he feels about the chance to be in the Mississippi state record books.

The Texas state record for a greater amberjack is a 121-pound monster caught in the Gulf in 2005 on a jig/cigar minnow. The International Game Fish Association lists the world record greater amberjack as a 156 pound, 13 ounce fish caught in 2010 in Japan.

To become the official state record the fish now has to be certified by Mississippi's Marine Resources Commission who immediately sent out an expert to photograph and verify the amberjack's size.

The commission will vote Wheeler and his fish into the record books April 15, bumping off the 124.4 lound catch by Mike Jimerson back in 2012.

That is, unless someone else catches a bigger one between now and then.

As for the fish, Denton said it fed quite a few people.

"Oh, we ate him," the captain said, noting that Wheeler did have a taxidermist come to take pictures for a replica to hang on the wall.